Operation: PROLOGUE
by veronica leigh
Summary: I wrote this on a whim because I love C:KND. This is just a oneshot right now, but if you guys want, I could turn it into a multi-chapter story...but I need to know your thoughts. And if you don't want to review, enjoying it is just as well.


**Yes. I love KND. (A TON!) haha Anyyyway, this is my first fic for them. This is just a oneshot, but I have ideas to the brim of my eyelashes for these guys, so if you want a full-blown story, you'll have to tell me. I'm not going to put forth the effort if nobody benefits from it~**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything regarding Nigel Uno, Hogarth "Hoagie/Hank" Pennywhistle Gilligan, Jr., Kuki Sanban, Wallabee Beatles, Abigail Lincoln, or Fanny, Numbah 86. All of those belong to Mr. Warburton and his amazing, CN-revered creativity. **

Operation: P.R.O.L.O.G.U.E.

P-redictably

R-eally

O-ne's

L-oneliest

O-perative

G-oing

U-nder

E-xpectations

Decomissionings were sad events no matter who it was to be lost. The Kids Next Door regarded each loss of friend and comrade like a serviceman's funeral. Senior Officers stood in two parallel lines of four, backs rigid and minds racing with silently grieving thoughts. Some of the officers did not know the subjects well at all. Some knew them far too well, indeed.

Whole Sectors tended to be decommissioned at once. That way, the Global Leaders reasoned, the grievances were kept to a minimum and they could go on with their lives without much interference. Sometimes an operative was not decommissioned, however; sometimes they were promoted to the TND.

Sometimes they remembered everything, whereas the friends they'd grown up with, fought with, virtually lived with for seven years…simply forgot everything.

Nigel Uno stood with the others as he watched Wallabee Beatles, Kuki Sanban, Abigail Lincoln, and Hogarth Pennywhistle Gilligan, Jr. enter the small pods used to contain the aging operatives as they awaited their inevitable fate. Nigel felt the beginnings of ill-ease tightening the pit of his stomach. He felt like he was about to be sick. He didn't know if he would be able to watch as he was erased from his best friends' minds. Permanently. There was no going back.

Kuki looked back at Nigel one last time before she was quickly ushered into the pod. She stared at him through the clear, plexi-plastic facing. Kuki Sanban was crying, waving at him with her sweater-clad hand. Nigel's gaze was averted to his other, soon-to-be-former teammates.

Wallabee was staring resolutely at the plastic in front of him, giving the appearance of one having gone cross-eyed. Nigel almost laughed. That was Numbah Four, alright.

Abigail watched Nigel as he moved his pseudo-calm gaze to her pod. She smiled indulgently, mouthing, _Numbah Five doesn't see any sunglasses. She'll have to remember thi…_ Both of their smiles waned to nothing, turning into bitter grimaces. Nigel looked away as Abigail closed her eyes tightly in an effort to calm herself.

Hoagie was biting his lip fervently, glancing anxiously at Nigel every few seconds. His best friend smiled wryly, shaking his head at Hoagie's antics. Of all his operatives, of all his friends, Numbah Two had been his right-hand man – Hoagie had been his best friend since Day One, when they were both fresh eight-year-olds just looking for something to do outside of the sandbox.

Without precedent, Hoagie started trying to slam himself against the pod's thick plastic facing. "I WANT TO STAY! NUMBAH ONE! C'MON, MAN!" He yelled, attempting to pummel in the wooden sides with his hands. Soon, he was howling, his hands covered with splinters. Numbah One, Nigel Uno, felt unutterably terrible for his friend's discomfort and obvious misgivings. The paramedic operatives were forced to give Hoagie his sedative prematurely. A light gray fog filled his pod, and soon the snoring face of Hoagie Pennywhistle Gilligan, Jr. was pressed against the thick plastic of the window in a nearly comical way.

If he could, Nigel would bring them all with him.

And maybe, if the invitation to TND was actually, really optional, then he could go with them into the oblivion-filled bliss of ignorance. That sounded good right about now. For years, Nigel had had to withhold all information in his own head – Numbahs Two and Four would have forgotten before he'd finished speaking, Three would have thought he was talking about Rainbow Monkeys in one way or another, and to be quite frank, Five wouldn't have cared all that much; although she had always been his other rock, the other constant in the weird, messed up scientific equation that was their team's work ethic, Abigail Lincoln was too laid-back for Nigel to entrust even the simplest of KND informatory secrets. To Nigel, if he wanted something done well, he had to do it himself.

A deep sigh rattled his short frame. He wanted badly to allow his shoulders to slump, or sit down and hold his head in his hands for a while, but he felt like his friends deserved more than an appalling display of bad posture and weakness.

He would be dignified. He was Nigel Uno, for goodness' sake.

Regrettably, Nigel could do nothing regarding his friends' situations. Maybe, once he'd regained a high rank in the TND, he could put in for recomissionings. Kuki would love that, Nigel thought. And Wally, Hoagie, and Abigail, too.

It almost seemed wrong to call them by their Numbahs now. Was this the beginning? Was he starting to forget them and their years together, even as he stood before them?

"Eh, tough break, Numbah One," muttered the dignitary beside him as he glanced at his bald comrade. "It must be difficult, watchin' this all goin' down." It was Numbah 365; he was from the Buffalo Sector. Allegedly, he had chosen his number because he had an irrational fixation with the Earth's revolutions. Nigel had hardly cared enough to ask, in any case.

Nigel's reply came in a rough whisper. "No talking. They're beginning." And true enough were his words as he watched Fanny locking the pods. These decommissioning devices were different from the ones used to erase his friends' memories just two years ago. Those had been crude, albeit traditionally so, and ill-developed. Hoagie had helped develop a more advanced system just six months ago. Nigel wondered absent-mindedly if he'd thought about his own machine being turned against him.

The small group of operatives and dignitaries watched as the pods of Kuki Sanban, Wallabee Beatles, and Abigail Lincoln filled with Sleeping Gas. The swirls of anesthesia-inducing vapor closed in on their faces, until they could be seen no more. Hoagie was already visibly unconscious, snoring loudly with his forehead and nose pressed tightly against the plastic of the window. Some of the standing operatives held back amused chuckles. To Nigel Uno, the last one of his home Sector to keep his head about him, this was no laughing matter. The piercing glare he sent to the other seven operatives was enough to quiet their passive mirth. Yessir.

The actual decommissioning took a matter of mere minutes to perform. A mask of sorts closed over the faces of Nigel Uno's friends, and the tell-tale whirring of the Memory Machine told Nigel that this was truly the End.

Who was he kidding? TND wasn't going to let him recommission his KND officers. They would claim emotional involvement – he would be too attached to keep his head on straight during the hearings. Besides, with Wally's tract record of blowing things up, Kuki's tendency to go Ga-Ga over Rainbow Monkeys, Hoagie's fixation with anything loud and machine, and Abigail's overall air of indifference (although she put herself into the KND more than any other officer he'd ever seen), the TND wouldn't want them, Nigel had to admit. TND was a stealth mission organization. There were no Numbahs. There were no passive jokes with your commanding officer during a siege. You went in, completed your mission, got out, and hit the home base. There was time for games when you weren't on the field. Nigel couldn't help but feel that his friends wouldn't last a minute in a genuinely serious environment.

Finally, many minutes of mind-numbing machinery noise later, and Numbah 86 faced the standing operatives. "Alright, lads. We've got to go. Deposit has to come through and get them back to Earth and home before they wake up." As she spoke, she gave Nigel a pitying look. He turned away stonily. He didn't need their pity. What he needed was his friends back, but that could be a long time coming. Those were his last thoughts as he stormed from the holding room ahead of the others. _I'll get you back, guys._


End file.
